Night Hunter is a 2019 thriller about a dangerous scheme involving a recently arrested, troubled man who’s linked to years of female abductions and murders.
Detective Aaron Marshall (Henry Cavill) is weathered and worn by the ugly world he lives in, that of sexual deviants and violence. It’s taken its toll, leaving him separated from his wife and trying to protect his teenage daughter Faye (Emma Tremblay). A new case involving another young women leaves him further troubled. Meanwhile, a former judge named Cooper (Ben Kingsley) has taken the law into his own hands, using pretty teen Lara (Eliana Jones) as bait to capture sexual predators and then castrate them. When circumstances bring Marshall and Cooper together, it leads them to a remote home where a man named Simon (Brendan Fletcher) has numerous young women held in cages. Under questioning from F.B.I. profiler Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), it’s discovered he’s not working alone.
Crazy killers with complicated agendas are not uncommon at the movies and on television, our seemingly endless fascination with the minds behind such acts leading an entire industry. Writer and director David Raymond‘s latest effort Night Hunter certainly fits the mold, fitting itself comfortably into the well worn ruts, where the genre is somewhat bound to by its very nature. This is a hefty story, suitably grimy and gritty, and Raymond works hard to keep it like that with a tortured Marshall balancing his need to keep his daughter safe in a dangerous world while trying to ebb the flow of monsters in the dark.
The twist in all this is the addition of Cooper, a man with his own personal haunts, he and his partner Lara hostile to the late efforts of the cops, believing there work is what matters. It’s hard not to agree, even as their vigilante methods fall well outside the lines of proper justice. The problem is that it’s hard to care, as we never really get to know what motivates them, the film congested with so much to keep spinning, it doesn’t have time to get us involved with anyone.
There’s a bevy of good talent on tap here, with Cavill and Kingsley joined by the likes of Nathan Fillion (briefly), Minka Kelly, and Stanley Tucci. They put in some quality work even as they are bound by the constraints of their stock characters. Unfortunately, Fletcher isn’t nearly in the same league and ends up hopelessly and wildly overdoing what could have been a sympathetic madman, the more the film ticks on, the less convincing and overwrought he becomes.
It’s not entirely his fault though, the script itself a result of slash and burn editing that leaves not much more than obvious and simple dialogue between these people, stripping what could have been a very disturbing and emotionally powerful battle of wits between three sides of this story falling into contrivances. It’s really frustrating because the opening moments are tough and heartbreaking, feeling like this could be something different, instead falling into predictable form with nothing at all interesting in carrying us to its end. Cavill is great fun to watch and fans of Kingsley will have plenty to find satisfying, but Night Hunter is a generic entry in an already overcrowded stable of similar fare that goes stale just minutes after starts.